Not going to say I am crazy about all the changes with 2.0, but I love the Rise of the Hutt Cartel's missions so far. Level 54 1/2 and have died 4 times, two are normal for me, fell down big holes, knew that was going to happen the first time I saw pictures of Makeb. The other two were this morning trying to get a chest from 2 elites and a large mob of weaks. I got the chest, too stubborn not to.

While the missions have a lot of grinding type parts (kill 50 or this or that), not really bothered since I am leveling and the new achievements. Not sure about other classes, but the writing for the female smugglers lines have been great, if you haven't played a female smuggler, I HIGHLY recommend you play one, or team up with one (just be sure to lose all convos).

My guess is I am getting close to the end of Rise of the Hutt Cartel, which is sad since I have really enjoyed the story, the humor (smuggler) and the combat. Not sure if it was that my main was just so over geared to start or I am just that good (I know it was the gear), but I haven't had any difficult challenge yet, although I have not done the heroic 4+s since I don't want to get grouped as chance losing a conversation and missing a line. Kind of rude to team up and then refuse to continue with someone.

If you haven't purchase Rise of the Hutt Cartel I recommend it, however pay attention, there are areas where you will become flagged if you enter them. There is a warning.

It's definitely fun. Makeb is an amazingly designed planet, with a lot of variety in the natural surroundings, some great architecture and glorious cliffs and you will fall down! (It actually reminds me of Guild Wars' last expansion, Eye of the North. It has a similar feel, esp. in the "jungle" areas of Makeb) I completed the story with my mercenary (and got to 55 in the process) and it's really been great. There are a few lovely scenes and the cutscenes on Makeb seem to have a bit more attention to detail than the vanilla game.

There are also two new questlines, one focused on using binoculars and one on seeker droids, that will see you traveling to pretty much every planet (a lot of which have gotten a new area or two in the process). While it's a fun idea, it's a bit stretched out and gets a little tedious after a while. The quests in between, which demand you to go in lairs and such, are great, though. Some (light) puzzles and some new area designs. Have gotten to the end, which are Heroic +4's and finding people to team up with at this stage seems difficult.

Also did one of the "new" HM Flashpoints. If the others are similar to Athiss, then don't expect major changes to their SM counterparts. I did Athiss with mostly campaign armor (with a few level 66 pieces) and only died at the end because I couldn't evade the fire thingies.

I've been subscribing for a while and was wondering how many cartel coins it would take to unlock everything that I already have access to and no longer subscribe? Also, which purchases would do that, if possible?

So a proud mooment for me anyways, my lvl 45 Sent (at the time) Ahrika needed the epic enemy codex for Taris which is Subject Alpha.

I went to Taris knowing I couldn't pull off the feat I did with my lvl 38 Commando at the time and began asking if anyone needed the World Boss.

I saw that their were several 50's and up on Taris yet none of them responded to my call. What I wound up with was one lvl 30 Sent and lvl 26 Sage healer and a bunch of lvl 18's to 21's of variouse classes. Our tank was only lvl 21 and another tank lvl 20.

One person asked if anyone could share the weekly and noone had it so she went to fleet to get it while we waited on everyone to get there.

The lvl 30 Sent was getting antsy about starting and like any good Ops leader I told him we were waiting on the person who went to get the weekly. Well they couldn't find the weekly and I said if anyone wants to drop out they can since there was no weekly to share. Everyone still wanted to try even tho we were a bunch of underleveled players.

Well the person who left finally got back and we started. I was so proud of them not one single person died and noone argued over loot. Was a great group of scrubs that joined me for that.

So storytime aside I do have a question.

What was the reason behind making Section X level 52 but not raising anything in it to level 52? I went today and everything was still the same as it always had been.

Heh, you might be in the minority on that one. Maybe it's just after doing Hoth for the umpteenth time, but it really gets old after a while. Ask mim. I don't mind Quesh, it's nothing special but it's short.

I was on my commando who is the best geared and the healer. After the 3rd wipe I politely dropped out saying hopefully you guys can find a better healer than me.

I wasn't geared high enough for this I figured out the hard way. Noone tried to tell me before we started even tho I said this is my first time doing one of these. Got no words of encouragement or even one of them telling me I wasn't geared for it.

Instead I got chewed out by the slinger dps while the guardian tank and vangaurd dps said nothing. It was after the slinger said are you even trying to heal and wow thanks after he died that I decided to drop out. Noone tried to keep the adds off of me so when the dogs were knocking me around everywhere breaking my heals they just stayed on the boss.

Needless to say I was bummed out and discouraged and changed my healer spec back to dps. Same thing happend to me when I first got my tionese gear and thought I could heal Kaon Under Siege HM. At least that group was nice and even said the problem was I was undergeared for it to try it again after I got a little bit better gear.

The new 55 HMFP are a pain. We wiped a few time even on guild runs with me healing and I was in full 63 gear. In my opinion SM TfB and the first 4 bosses of SM S&V are easier to heal than the HM 55 FPs.

Also if they were attacking the boss instead of the adds, then the failure is DPS, not yours. Before I got a little 69 gear, I was only doing these with people in our guild and they all know kill order and to keep stuff off the healer, not saying I don’t get touched, but when they see a healers health dropping they come running.

I love healing, I take responsibly, deserved or not, for every wipe no matter what role I am playing, so healer is right up my alley, but in reality group content is group content. Usually a wipe involves more than one factor that caused the group to fail. By the sound of it, you may have been a little undergeared and unsure of all the mechanics, compound that with DPS with gold fever instead of following proper kill order and that spells a wipe.

You’re talking about The Beast of Vodal Kressh? Yeah, the adds should be tanked and killed before the boss. So you did not fail beyond you were not so overgeared to make up for idiots that have no clue how to play group content.

My suggestion 2 fold 1). Read Dulfy walkthrough on the 4 new HM 55 flashpoints and 2) make your first run through with people in your guild (if you are in a guild) or with friends. http://dulfy.net/category/swtor/

I love healing, I take responsibly, deserved or not, for every wipe no matter what role I am playing, so healer is right up my alley

You’re talking about The Beast of Vodal Kressh? Yeah, the adds should be tanked and killed before the boss. So you did not fail beyond you were not so overgeared to make up for idiots that have no clue how to play group content.

My suggestion 2 fold 1). Read Dulfy walkthrough on the 4 new HM 55 flashpoints and 2) make your first run through with people in your guild (if you are in a guild) or with friends. http://dulfy.net/category/swtor/

I am the same way, I will take responsibilty for a wipe even if I think something is not my fault. And it was the first boss in Mando Raiders, the guy with the 2 Akk dogs.

As for guild I dropped out of my guild a while back when I realized they were more pvp oriented than OP oriented. My usual running buddy I do these things with is having computer issues so I am running solo right now trying to do what I can.

Hey Eefluxx don't feel bad, our guild master and the 2nd best player I know, not going to say who I consider the best, Mav may be a big head, anyways Seijin got in a random group last night with a tank in dps gear and ended up quitting the group. Even he couldn't outheal the content to make up for idiots.

I'm doing the last Commando class quest line on Hoth, and my companion (Elara) can't seem to cross the invisible wall she seems to see. What do? I've tried un-summoning / summoning and completely resetting the quest to no avail. Really, really irritating since It's the last one before I leave the planet.

I've had this issue on Makeb during one of the Weekly missions. At the last room I had to defeat an elite, but Mako didn't want to enter the room. Same with HK-51. I had to back up as well for them to be useful. I did it again yesterday and didn't have that problem anymore (used Torian). Either they fixed it or I did something different, I have no clue.

Not that far along with the trooper, but did have that with a staircase and boss at the Consular story.
Dismiss and recall did work, and made me kill the boss, instead of the boss kill me first time when I suddenly was tankless.

Just ask in the area for assistance, highlight the mission. Maybe add why too, since most times I saw people do that rude people respond with "you should be able to do these missions yourself, noob"...

So I finished Makeb with my gunslinger and ran the staged weekly and some of the dailies. Mob after mob after mob.

My Commando still needs to finish Makeb and I need to start with my other toons.

But gearwise I have noticed my cybertech can make the 28 gear. Yet the mods you get from the gear in the basic comms are different. IE you can get Adept mod 28 but your cyber only gets a schem for 28A which is more towards you main stat and less for power or crit. (I can't remember which it is for Adept off the top of head).

It seems the gear you get with the basic comms is more towards endurance than main stat. Should I still be stacking main stat above everything else even if it means sacrificing power and crit.

Like for my sorc I made a bunch of resolve armor 28's purple and the 2 mods that give you power or crit but the mods you get from the basic gear vendor when you buy the gear give you less willpower by like 20 but more power or crit by like 20.

Would it be better to use the mods they give you instead of swapping out and using augments to replace the willpower you could have gotten?

I'm always willing to help, as I'm sure many in the guild are. Or as Hassat pointed out, asking in the area might get you the help, especially if you explain why (maybe someone there might know the solution as well).

For just about every DPS spec, it seems as if the best way to maximize your damage is to gear according to the following rules:

Always take Power over Critical Rating.
Always you the unlettered Mod as this contains the most total Main Stat + Power.
Always Augment with Main Stat augments.
Get Accuracy to 110% (for Force/Tech attacks) and then stack Surge after that. Alacrity also extremely shallow, especially relative to Surge and Accuracy is way better than both of them.

From what I have seen with parse data is that full power has about a 5% edge in DPS over crit/power.

As SWTOR is my first MMO I have to say that I've found the end game gearing riddle rather annoying. From what I've seen in general chat it sounds like other MMO's have had similar issues. As I'm gearing with Black Market drops from 55 HM FP's and items purchased from the elite comms vendor I find the Black Market (Boltblaster) gear for my DPS commando to be very lacking in accuracy and high in crit. I just don't understand why it is left to the players to figure out how to best gear their toon.

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Currently my sorc has 330 crit and around 450 surge with about 450 power but from theupdated version he says to get crit to around 200 or below and stack power now so I pretty much have my answer for a straight healer and non dps.

However what you said does help me on my slinger, commando and sniper.